Hellboy vol. 3: The Chained Coffin and Others.

This book contains many short stories that are among the best there is in the Hellboy series. If you don’t know anything about Hellboy and want to give him a try, here is a good option.

There are many special stories and DHP short stories from the beginning of Hellboy. Here Mignola is fooling around with his character, developing only good stories without the intention of a continuity convention. Therefore, Hellboy usually runs solo in most of the adventures. And the stories are good. Oh, yes they are.

The Corpse.
This is one of everybody favourites. An ancient Irish story turn into the steampunk version of Hellboy. A baby is kidnapped and Hellboy uses the help of a corpse to find him, while helping the dead man to be buried in peace. A beauty.

The Iron Shoes.
Another short story based on Irish traditional tales. A big monster, a big fight and a nice ending.

The Baba Yaga.
One of the most important antagonist of Hellboy debuts here. We get to know why she is so angry with Hellboy. She missed an eye.

A Christmas Underground.
A Christmas special based on another traditional tale. Hellboy finds a hounted house, with a salamander-dragon and a big Were-rat. The fire purifies all at the end.

The Chained Coffin.
Here we can see some of the BPRD pals of Hellboy, like Abe. And what’s most important, a Demon who seems to be Hellboy’s father. Our hero is frightened to dead.

The Wolves of Saint August.
A huge, beautiful story. Hellboy and Katie, from BPRD travels to a city where a Dracula-like werewolf is the king of all. And Hellboy is here to free the city from the monster. But is the city willing?

Almost Colossus.
A big monster plus the introduction of the BPRD Humunculus. This was a two part miniseries. Roger (we get to know that his name is that at the end of the story) found his “brother”, a homunculus with power delirium. Hellboy gets really angry.